Welcome to the 2026 Boys High School season.
While a few teams have started playing, for the most part we won't see these teams take the field for quite some time. We will see California and North Carolina, as well as Texas, play in January, and that should help move the rankings around.
And they will move around. We do expect a team to come out of relative obscurity. We do expect a team ranked highly to dip a little. This is a complex ranking because many of the teams in Southern California, Northern California, and North Carolina will finish playing by the time March rolls around. Many of their players will move on to play HS club rugby.
But the first weekend of March is the opening of the season for others, and other season start even later than that.
That's why you need Goff Rugby Report!
As for what we did with the rankings this week: Programs that have a strong history probably drift up a little. We don't think Gonzaga will be in the teens for long. Teams that seemed to be senior-heavy last year might drift down a little.
Teams that look in good shape to reload, or got key experience last year, also move up compared to the final week of 2025.
Why Herriman #1 and not St. Ignatius? The key aspect is leadership. Both teams return a significant portion of the lineups that battled to a 20-17 Ignatius win in last year's School final. Both lose important seniors. What we see, however, is an Ignatius team that won by the skin of its teeth that graduated some really exceptional leaders—no disrespect to the captains for the 2026 team, or the leaders on the Herriman side, we're just trying to give a compliment here.
Those leaders moved on to become influential players on their college teams, and the question is, can Ignatius punch above their weight again?
Maybe. Quite possibly, in fact. But they will have competition, and one of the biggest competitors is in Utah.
